Twelve hours of travel time. First by bus/car and then by train. While most people slept on the train ride, I could not fall asleep, for my mind kept chugging. It started with a water bottle. All thirteen of us hopped on the first class car to head back to Delhi for our second to last night in India. I looked out my window as we raced through the countryside - the sun setting turned the sky into cotton candy, and the disappearing light shadowed the rich green trees. Though I sat there speeding through such beauty and tranquility, I could not help but notice we passed by countless slums and grass huts. Ten minutes into the ride, the train attendant handed each person in the car a bottle of water. I took the bottle, said "Thank you," and set the bottle aside.
Then came the thinking. This bottle is not just a bottle of water. To the poverty stricken, this bottle means money, a meal, sanitation, health, and even life. One man could sell this water bottle on the street to provide a meal for his family; a woman could use the water to bath her newborn child. In India, water, at times, means life or death. The percentage of people living in India without access to safe drinking water is astounding. Unclean water leads to sickness, disease, and sometimes death.
As I took a sip of the water, my stomach churned. We take these gems for granted. Think about the last time you drank from a water bottle. Did you finish all the water in the bottle? If not, what did you do with the water left over in the bottle? Did you pour it down the drain or save it for later? Reflect on how you used the water and if you truly cherished every drop. Many of us expect clean water, food, shelter, and education to be readily available to us, but we do not always think of the immense number of people living without these necessities.
The juxtaposition of sitting in the luxurious first class while passing such desolate poverty emphasizes the increasing income gap in India. As Dr. Meeta Keswani Mehra, an economics professor at Jawahar Lal Nehru Univerity, mentioned in our talk yesterday, the wide income gap between the rich and the poor exponentially grows every year. Twenty-seven percent of the population in India live below the poverty line. While twenty-seven percent may not seem like a lot, you must consider the size of India's population. With a population of 1.3 billion, 351 million live in extreme poverty, most of the time without access to the basic needs of life. All in all, the water bottle handed to me on the train reminded me to be mindful of how we use our daily lives materials, for those materials may mean the world to someone else.
During our talk with Tara, each person chose an aspect of India they would like to improve. Most of the changes mentioned issues concerning poverty. We continued to reflect on our time in India, our expectations before the trip, our findings, and overarching adjectives for the country. "Paradoxical." "Spiritual." "Passionate." "Breathtaking." One word cannot simply describe India. From henna to glass bangles to Bollywood movies to homemade traditional street food, our final day in India captured the country's vibrancy, energy, and culture. It pained everyone of us to leave Thomas and this new home behind, but as Thomas said, "I'll see you when you come back. You'll come back."
- Morgan McNair
No comments:
Post a Comment